Turning task into adventure

I was given a mid-banding season break because of the upcoming hummingbird festival with visiting banders to take my place trapping for Kelly. So my task today was to put up festival posters (see previous post). All went smoothly until I got to the Sul Ross campus. I went into the cafeteria and with the help of a "man-taller-than" I am, got one tacked to the bulletin board. Next, I headed to the library. There I was told I had to go to the office to get the poster stamped. Directions to office, not so good. Finally, after asking everyone I saw, I was headed to the right building. I hoped. Encountered previously-encountered "man-taller-than." He said I had already been in that building. But I was sure it was the building pointed out to me by a more recently encountered person. Once inside the building I asked directions a couple of times, wandered around some more, when I came across a bulletin board with the festival poster on it. I thought, "someone else is putting up posters. We need to get this operation coordinated better." Then I realized I was in the cafeteria. I had hung it, in case you lost track.

I finally found the "office." The lady there stamped the poster. We chatted briefly. She sure looked familiar. Finally, I had to know. "Are you Barbara?" I blurted out. She gave me a somewhat quizzical look, but replied, yes, she was. Well, Alpine isn't a big town, after all. So I told her who I was. Then we sort of recognized one another. She is a tenant in one of our rent houses across from our house. Has been for years. I explained that I had prosopagnosia, stumbling a bit over the pronunciation. You know, that's the inability to recognize faces. Then I asked her if she had it, too. Oops! "Apparently," she replied.

Always looking for an excuse to go to Gage Gardens in Marathon, I decided to put a poster in the Gage Hotel. Afterwards, like a child at Disneyland, I darted around the gardens snapping photos. Still no one there to help me up on the cow for a photo (see July 11 post). Maybe next time.

I'm so jealous of their Mexican Elder trees. Mine never get fruit on them. In fact, mine look half-dead all the time.

One of our Mexican Elder trees in Alpine today

Gage Gardens Mexican Elder tree today

When I got home I downloaded my photos. There were some really worn butterflies in the bunch. One that I figured Brian would just say was a worn Common Buckeye turned out to be a Tropical Buckeye, a lifer for me.